Here, free education:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/if-android-is-a-stolen-product-then-so-was-the-iphone/
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple and Samsung Seek to Extend Infringement Claims in Second U.S. Patent Lawsuit
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Here, free education:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/02/if-android-is-a-stolen-product-then-so-was-the-iphone/
This is getting ridiculous. I would love to see the court drop the $1 billion verdict and fine botch companies $2 billion for this nonsense. Force them to negotiate or slam another $1 billion fine in their face if they try to sue each other again.
I see this thread is filled with the same garbage and ranting as all the other threads that mention lawsuit and/or one of Apple's competition.
I'm going to ignore just about everything that has been said and just make this one point perfectly clear.
Smartphones were already going the way of the iPhone. Having worked for one major manufacturer - I can personally "vouch" that they were working on a few full touchscreen phones that had no keyboard.
Would they have been as great/popular/etc as the iPhone - no one can say. Just like no one can state as a fact that if it weren't for the iPhone - we'd all be carrying blackberries or phones with keyboards.
The evidence is far more on the side that we'd still have fully capacitive touch phones today.
I give credit to Apple for making a slick UI and fantastic marketing. And for their software. The original iPhone was a lot of fun to play with. I know some will argue that it was highly functional. But for a long time I carried both the iPhone and my Treo (the phone I had at the time) because as "cool" as the iPhone was - there wasn't too much you could do with it for productivity. That's not a "slam." It's just a reality. For me - not having exchange access - at that time - was extremely important. But surfing the web was certainly neat. And even though the camera was "OK" - flipping through pictures was fun. As were all the other finger "slides" you could do. But in the end - again - it was pretty limited (for me).
But that's what happens in the marketplace. New tech comes along and early adopters/v1 makes strides forward but often is limited in other ways which leaves room for the advancement of that technology.
I'm going to ignore just about everything that has been said and just make this one point perfectly clear.
Smartphones were already going the way of the iPhone. Having worked for one major manufacturer - I can personally "vouch" that they were working on a few full touchscreen phones that had no keyboard.
Would they have been as great/popular/etc as the iPhone - no one can say. Just like no one can state as a fact that if it weren't for the iPhone - we'd all be carrying blackberries or phones with keyboards.
The evidence is far more on the side that we'd still have fully capacitive touch phones today.
I give credit to Apple for making a slick UI and fantastic marketing. And for their software. The original iPhone was a lot of fun to play with. I know some will argue that it was highly functional. But for a long time I carried both the iPhone and my Treo (the phone I had at the time) because as "cool" as the iPhone was - there wasn't too much you could do with it for productivity. That's not a "slam." It's just a reality. For me - not having exchange access - at that time - was extremely important. But surfing the web was certainly neat. And even though the camera was "OK" - flipping through pictures was fun. As were all the other finger "slides" you could do. But in the end - again - it was pretty limited (for me).
But that's what happens in the marketplace. New tech comes along and early adopters/v1 makes strides forward but often is limited in other ways which leaves room for the advancement of that technology.
Very good piece from Ars, sums my whole thinking on this subject really well. It's too bad Ars will probably be labelled "fandroids" or some other insult, just because they adopt a realist view of how product development and IP protection goes.
"Apple and Samsung Seek to Extend Infringement Claims"
There you go, you seem to have some trouble with reading comprehension.
Looks like all of the mental effort went towards coming up with an infantile name.
I'm just happy that one of the bleating faithful has finally suggested "just buying them" in this thread.
Magic.
Apple should definitely buy them out. I mean - Apple can afford it with their billions in the bank, right? They can buy any company they want. If they aren't buying Samsung it's because they don't want to - not because they can't afford it.
Aside from that never happening - why would you really want that to even be a remote possibility?
Apple should definitely buy them out. I mean - Apple can afford it with their billions in the bank, right? They can buy any company they want. If they aren't buying Samsung it's because they don't want to - not because they can't afford it.
It's a nice thought and Apple certainly has the cash for it, but the FTC would allow Apple to buy Google before allowing them to purchase Samsung. It would also be a very sad day for global consumers. But I'm sure you already share this feeling.
This article is really good. It actually says that Android did indeed copy the iPhone. But it also says that iPhone also copied a lot of previously developed ideas while creating the iPhone, which is what I've been saying all along. So it's indeed right for Apple to sue Android handset makers, and while it does that, they should also expect to be sued by the 3rd party developers who contributed to the iPhone, if they patented all those ideas.
It was never a question of Apple inventing everything inside the iPhone, but by buying several small companies, which have patented a lot of stuff that went into the iPhone before anyone else could, Apple started this on a firmer ground than Google, because they were there first. For example, Fingerworks was an extremely cheap company for both Apple or Google to acquire whenever they wanted, but it was Apple who realised that they would use Fingerworks patents in their upcoming product so they snatched it. So it's really a question of whether Apple actually paid for all the necessary 3rd party development before they made the iPhone. If they didn't, they will be liable. But Samsung certainly did not.
Nice Ars link! I want to expand upon something I read in the last paragraph...
Think about it. If Apple had gotten their way in the first look and feel quit-using-our-ideas lawsuit war, Steve Jobs would've been gridlocked out of his own idea, which would've then been owned by Apple. He wouldn't have been able to start up NeXT, which means we wouldn't have seen OSX, and in turns means we wouldn't have iOS devices now.
So all of you who clamor and scream that Apple "has the right to protect their own innovations from copycats", think of that. Without "copycats" the industry doesn't move forward. Doesn't expand. Doesn't innovate. And we're left with a sterile environment where only massive, conservative companies have the rights to anything.
There is no innovation in an environment where every company is granted exclusive rights to their own innovations. And since no innovation stands alone...
Think about it. If Apple had gotten their way in the first look and feel quit-using-our-ideas lawsuit war, Steve Jobs would've been gridlocked out of his own idea, which would've then been owned by Apple. He wouldn't have been able to start up NeXT, which means we wouldn't have seen OSX, and in turns means we wouldn't have iOS devices now.
So all of you who clamor and scream that Apple "has the right to protect their own innovations from copycats", think of that. Without "copycats" the industry doesn't move forward. Doesn't expand. Doesn't innovate. And we're left with a sterile environment where only massive, conservative companies have the rights to anything.
There is no innovation in an environment where every company is granted exclusive rights to their own innovations. And since no innovation stands alone...
Nope. Not even close.
I'm sorry. You think Apple can afford to buy Samsung. Yeah. Ok.
Jobs didn't have to start up Next for us to have iOS devices now. Surely there were a lot more UNIX derivatives than what they did at Next. If none of this happened, Microsoft wouldn't be the tech giant they became in the 90's, that would be Apple because Mac OS would be the Windows of the world then. So basically everything would have been different, and an Apple not struggling to stay afloat might have innovated a lot more a lot earlier than what we got in our timeline.
----------
Apple can't buy Samsung, and even if they had the cash, they wouldn't. It doesn't solve anything. Apple buys Samsung and HTC or something else would become the #1 Android handset and take Samsung's place anyway.
Things would be a lot different, that's for sure. First though, you have to wonder why Apple ended up struggling for survival back in the day. Was it because MS steamrolled them over, or because they didn't offer the market much of a compelling choice in comparison, despite being the "first" GUI OS manufacturer. It's really a mix of both. MS played dirty, but Apple practically gave them the entire market to do with as they pleased by not doing much of anything at all to combat them.
Now if Apple had exclusive rights to the GUI back then, you can just look at history and see that things would've likely been considerably worse. Even when they had every reason in the word to innovate during those post-Jobs years, they didn't. If they had exclusive control of the market, it probably would've ended up more staid and blase than what we had with MS during the late '90's, early '00's...and there would be no room for the market to grow for 30 years. Not while they held exclusive rights to all the patents involving the GUI.
One thing that the history of technology should teach you in general is that big companies don't innovate unless they absolutely have to. Look at AT&T. They invented voice telecommunication. Yet while they held their decades long monopoly, barely any advances were made in that field. It wasn't until the government busted them up in the early 80's that things started moving, and we started seeing real innovations in the field again.
...and now everything is reconsolidating here in the US, and we're all getting shafted on prices.
What makes you think Apple would've been any different had they almost complete control of the GUI PC market?
You're right. Didn't realize Samsung is actually a conglomerate of 80 different companies and likely are supported by the Korean govt. They got deep pockets.
Apple was around long before iPhones were introduced. Hasn't their market share in laptops increased since the pre-iPhone days?
50% of Apple's revenue is iPhones. If the iPhone were wiped out in a quarter (that's not happening ever), Apple would lose half of their revenues/profit. What do you think would happen to investors, the stock, and general consumer confidence if that were to happen ?
RIM were selling more units of the Blackberry phone than they ever had in a quarter when someone declared them dead. Look at them today.